Your feeling that, “I HAD NOT seen it before,” sounds wrong is absolutely correct. "HAD NOT" in this dialogue is wrong. “HAD NOT seen,” is the Past Perfect tense of “to see.” It refers to an action that was completed prior to some point in time or to some event that occurred in the past.

Nov 17, 2017 · Using had not (past perfect) is not necessarily wrong, but I'd only do it if I wanted to emphasize that the lack of invitation was something that happened before the event that I really wanted to be the point of my story.

So, the difference between hadn't and didn't is that they are used in different tenses and have different meaning. In this case the sentence. Please do not dock my pay as I was in the office but hadn't brought my ID card.

Mar 6, 2025 · An example of the correct way to use "had not" is, "I had not eaten." This indicates that I did not eat yet. Here, eat is the main verb, and "had not" is used to help the reader understand that the action (eating) did not happen in the past.

1 means "I hadn't formed an intention to become a Dr because I always intended to be a teacher" (i.e. no thoughts on being a Dr) and 2 means "I had an intention to be a teacher and an intenion NOT to be a Dr" (i.e. against being a Dr).

Aug 23, 2015 · For negative sentences in past perfect, a simple rule to frame sentences is - Subject + hadn't + main verb in past participle. Example - He had not learnt music before he became famous. My question - Is the rule restricted to "hadn't" coming after the subject? Can we not say something like this - He did not study music before he became famous.

Jan 21, 2020 · No, the second sentence is not correct. You would have to say 'hadn't any' worthy rivals. Hadn't = had not and you cannot say 'had not rivals'. Not makes 'had' negative, whereas 'no' is a quantity (zero or none).

Apr 20, 2023 · Synonym for have not "Have not" is present (perfect) tense, "had not" is past (perfect) tense.

Jul 21, 2010 · There are possible contexts for "I had not known that", but not for "I have not known that". what is the right?: I had not known that before.. That is certainly possible in certain circumstances. For instance, you might say, "I hadn't known [or been aware of] that before I arrived in Tulsa.

Apr 15, 2024 · Both "if I had not" and "had I not" are correct, but they are used in different contexts. "If I had not" is used in conditional sentences to express a hypothetical situation in the past, while "had I not" is used in formal or literary contexts for inversion in questions.